EoE Advocate Colette Romero on Need for More Physician Education About Eosinophilic Disorders

Transcript

Do you think that more education about eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE) needs to be done among pediatricians who are often the first to see a very young child with suspected symptoms, and in addition, among gastroenterologists?

I absolutely think that PCPs [primary care providers] need more education about EGIDS [eosinophilic gastrointestinal disorders]. I think that there's a lot of symptoms that get missed or misdiagnosed. And if there was more education, there would be more referrals—kind of just to rule it out. Because it is one of those kind of silent diseases where, you know, you can't see it on the surface, and it requires a biopsy, which is invasive, to be able to detect it. So a lot of times doctors don't want to put kids through that when they're so little, but to be able to identify what it is, then you can have options for starting to feel better and to get some treatment.

And as far as gastroenterologists, we were very lucky that our doctor was trained in one of the top hospitals in Colorado where they actually do the intranasal upper endoscopies; they're kind of one of the pioneers of understanding these types of diseases. And so we were very lucky that he became our gastroenterologist, but I think a lot of GI docs absolutely should be aware of this disease. It's still a new disease. And there's a lot of misunderstandings about it and a lot of education needs to get out there, especially with the new treatments that are being trialed right now. I think there's a lot to learn and these new biologic treatments are very exciting and have a lot of potential, so I'm very excited about that.